Published 2012/03/30

OCA is pleased to announce the awarding of the publication
Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia? within the
competition ‘Årets vakreste Bøker’ (‘The Most Beautiful Books of
The Year’), organised annually by Grafill ­– the organisation for
Norwegian graphic designers and illustrators. Whatever Happened
to Sex in Scandinavia?, designed by NODE Berlin Oslo, received the first
prize in the category ‘Facts and Reference / Adult Literature’.
According to the jury, the design of Whatever Happened to Sex
in Scandinavia? has to be praised for ‘a documentation of an
epoch, a theme and a movement with a humorous and unpretentious
undertone’. They further add: ‘The choice of a soft cover is
untraditional for a reference book that shall be used often and
stay in the bookshelf for many years. This makes the book as an
even more exiting object. The designer is familiar with the
material and has acquired a good balance between pure documentation
and essays and photographic references’. In a comment NODE says
that ‘there is a lot of work behind the project – both from us, but
mostly from OCA’s side. Whatever Happened to Sex in
Scandinavia? is a very interesting project with a rich
material source. We hope that the book will get the attention it
deserves’.

The awarded books will be on view on the 2nd floor of the
National Library in Oslo until 12 April. The
exhibition will then travel to Grafill’s offices in Rosenkrantz
gate 21, Oslo, and will be on display until 27 April
2012.

Whatever Happened to Sex in Scandinavia? is an
anthology edited by OCA’s Marta Kuzma and
Pablo Lafuente that reflects upon the juncture of
the political and the erotic in the 1960s and 70s, in special
relation to the image of Scandinavia as a sexually and politically
utopic territory during those decades. With a close reading of the
cultural and socio-political history of Scandinavia, through the
writings of Wilhelm Reich, Herbert
Marcuse, Norman O. Brown, Daniel
Guérin, Jacqueline Rose and others, and through an
examination of the obscenity bonanza that emerged around Swedish
film-maker Vilgot Sjöman‘s I Am Curious
(Yellow), the publication offers a plethora of historical
material and an investigation of the political motivations behind
naming a cultural form obscene and pornographic.

The anthology is published by the Office for Contemporary Art
Norway and Koenig Books, London, with generous support from Fritt
Ord. It can be purchased through OCA’s
website and in bookstores internationally.

OCA’s Public Space
From 29 March until 23 June OCA presents
PORTRAIT PORTRAIT OF OF A A GENERATION GENERATION by artist and
author Matias Faldbakken, curated by Marta Kuzma. In sourcing
iconic sculptures produced in the 20th century, the artist
essentially de-skills modernist aspirations toward the
aerodynamic, the minimal, and the abstract by acrobating
revered works of ‘art’ into vessels for intoxication.

A sculpture is something that if it falls on your foot, it
will break it.
— John Chamberlain

Sculpture is something you bump into when you back up to
look at a painting.
— Ad Reinhardt

The Office for Contemporary Art Norway is pleased to announce a
solo exhibition by Matias Faldbakken entitled PORTRAITPORTRAITOFOFAAGENERATIONGENERATION, curated by Marta Kuzma.
This exhibition reflects Faldbakken’s continued interest in
morphing a pre-existing language of forms into a deadpan
vernacular. Through suspect negotiations and inferred mediations,
Faldbakken sources iconic sculptures produced in the
20th century. The artist essentially de-skills modernist
sculpture’s aspirations toward the aerodynamic, the
minimal, and the abstract by acrobating revered works of ‘art’
into vessels for intoxication.

In his practice as artist and author, Matias Faldbakken
displaces and reconfigures cultural signifiers in order to create a
field of agitated idleness. In imposing a rupture to
the original sequences of reading and interpretation, the
artist points to the eradication of cause and effect in an
alienated and onanistic society. In this particular project, made
possible by the generous cooperation of The Vigeland Museum and
with the Haukeland Family, Faldbakken prompts the sculptures
and those viewing them to be slam dunked out of inebriated
patterned regimens and to seek a rehabilitation of meaning.

About the artist
Matias Faldbakken (b.1973, Hobro, Denmark, lives and works in Oslo,
Norway) has exhibited widely internationally and within Norway. His
recent solo exhibitions include The Power Station, Dallas, TX,
USA; Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany; Neuer Aachener
Kunstverein, Aachen, Belgium; Kunsthalle St. Gallen, St. Gallen,
Switzerland and The National Museum of Art, Design and
Architecture, Oslo. He participated in the Nordic Pavilion at
La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy in 2005. As an
author, his publications include Search (2011),
Unfun (2008), Snort Stories
(2006), Cold Product (2006), Macht und Rebel
(2002), The Cocka Hola
Company (2001). Faldbakken received his
education from the Academy of Fine Arts, Bergen, Norway and
Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

For more information on the exhibition, please contact OCA press
officer Maria Moseng.

Office for Contemporary Art Norway
The Office for Contemporary Art Norway is a foundation created by
The Norwegian Ministry of Culture and The Norwegian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in autumn 2001. The main aim of the Office for
Contemporary Art Norway is to develop collaborations in
contemporary art between Norway and the international art scene.
The Office for Contemporary Art Norway aims to become a key
contributor to the discourses of contemporary art.